Social Protection for Indigenous Peoples

Men, women and children from indigenous peoples are estimated to represent 4.5 per cent of the world’s population. They constitute more than 5,000 different groups with distinct cultures, forms of social organization, livelihood strategies, practices, notions of poverty and wellbeing, values, and beliefs profoundly embedded in their collective relationship with the lands and territories that they occupy or use, which is at the heart of their distinct identities.

Lack of access to adequate social protection is a reality for millions of men, women and children belonging to indigenous peoples, which needs to be understood against the context of their common experience of historic injustices, including colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and
resources, as well as persisting marginalisation.

This brief explores a human rights-based framework for promoting social protection for indigenous peoples in national development plans.